In the News (Thu 21 Mar 19)

Timber was thus only a viable industry in sparsely populated lands such as those in the Baltic area and also in North America.

The dependency on Baltictimber was paramount in the minds of British statesmen in the late seventeenth century mostly because of the strategic dangers.

Besides the trade coming from Norway, the timber ships had to come through the narrow straits separating Denmark from Sweden, a passage easily blocked by enemy navies, especially the Dutch who were geographically well placed to impede trade through the North Sea, a could, to a lesser extent, the French.

Trade in the East Indies was dominated by Portugal in the 16th century, the Netherlands in the 17th century, and the British in the 18th century.

The ascendancy of free trade was primarily based on national advantage in the mid 19th century.

Empirical evidence for the success of trade can be seen in the contrast between countries such as South Korea, which adopted a policy of export-oriented industrialization, and India, which historically had a more closed policy (although it has begun to open its economy, as of 2005).

Timber slides disappeared after the construction of canal networks and the decline of the timbertrade.

Timber treatment and lumber preservation in forestry describes the intensive treatment of timber with chemical agents to increase its durability and ability to be used in an otherwise inappropriate situation like inground use.

The spaces between the timber frames were then infilled with wattle-and-daub, brick or rubble, with plastered faces on the exterior and interior which were often “ceiled” with wainscoting for insulation and warmth.

Further compounding the problem was that unlike other areas where the British had a trade deficit, such as India, the Baltictrade could not be justified on the grounds that Great Britain gained in the end from re-export to the continent, Baltic goods were overwhelmingly used in Britain.

The sheer bulk of timber and its many requirements soon lead the transatlantic timbertrade to become Britain's largest employing a quarter of Britain's merchant tonnage.

The timbertrade is contributing to the replanting of forests in the British Isles.

Timber and wood are renewable resources and forests are being re - established as the demand for timber continues to grow.

It is important to remember that many forests are created by man in order to harvest the timber as a crop, in the same way as we harvest wheat or potatoes and that felling these trees is not a bad thing, as long as others are planted in their place.

Trading was the main facility of prehistoric people, who bartered goods and services from each other.

Materials used for creating jewelry were traded with Egypt since 3000 BCE The Phoenicians were noted sea traders, travelling across the Mediterranean Sea, and as far north as Britain for sources of tin to manufacture bronze.

Words like trade and trading are also applied, though imprecisely, to some exchanges that do not involve any payment or barter, but just a sequence of equivalent actions, as in trading licks.

Timber is a term used to describe wood, either standing or that has been processed for use—from the time trees are felled, to its end product as a material suitable for industrial use—as structural material for construction or wood pulp for paper production.

The timber industry states that finishing and drying the lumber results in the nominal size differing from the actual size, however, you will find that many houses built more than roughly 50 years ago usually have timber where the actual size and nominal size are the same.

Timber or lumber may be treated with a preservative that protects it from being destroyed by insects, fungus or exposure to moisture.

The men only returned home in the spring, when the timber floated downstream to sawmills and the timber drive was over.

There were several reasons for this: it was easier to fell trees when the sap was not running; it was easier to haul timber over the snow onto the ice roads; and there was always a surplus of cheap labour in the winter.

Among the hazards of working in the woods were the danger of frostbite, the risk of being injured by falling trees or by axes, and the possibility of falling through river ice into frigid water.

Mexico and British Columbia, for example, are in the process of implementing new forestry laws and could benefit from the experiences of NAFTA partners in enforcing their own laws.

Because the North American forest trade is so closely intertwined, with all three countries trading as importers and exporters of each other's goods, policies that affect the costs borne or prices faced by producers in one country necessarily affect timber management incentives in the others.

In British Columbia, sport and commercial fishing directly supports 16,000 jobs, bringing in $1 billion of annual revenue to the province.155 Like that of tourism, the revenue generated by the fisheries industry remains at the local level at a much higher rate than that of the timber industry.

www.yale.edu /envirocenter/clinic/nacec.html (13748 words)

Chopsticks and Trade(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)

In terms of trade, the timber industry is economically crucial in Southeast Asia, Central and South America, the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia.

The timber is usually transported to Japan in the form of raw logs and there it is milled into various products.

In the case of the plant in Minnesota the question remains as to whether converting trees into chopsticks is a responsible use of timber.

Logging for timber is one of the main causes of forest destruction and degradation around the world (although its relative impact varies in different parts of the world, with some forest areas affected more by the clearance of forest for agriculture or oil palm plantations).

The country is now a timber importer with 18 million impoverished forest dwellers, an external debt of nearly $40 billion in 1995 (up from $17 billion in 1980) and over one third of the population still living below the poverty line.

'Free trade' favours large transnational corporations and their ability to extract short-term financial gains from wherever resources are cheapest, making it more difficult for governments or communities to take control of their own resources to secure long-term benefits.

This timber, much of it heart pine, is sought after for restoration projects in Europe.

Shippers are required, however, to include a statement on the invoice or bill of lading stating that the timber was reclaimed from the dismantling or demolition of old warehouses or buildings.

In a March 9 statement, Australian Shadow Minister for Trade, Senator Peter Cook said that the Opposition Labor Party was favorably disposed" towards a free trade agreement between Australia and the United States.

Environmental groups estimate that 60 percent of Britain's tropical timber imports are from illegal sources, while it is estimated that about 70 percent of logging in Indonesia is illegal.

British companies have faced pressure from environmental groups for some time over their investment and trade in Indonesian forest corporations.

A previous Friends of the Earth campaign in 1999 led to the British government changing its timber-buying policy after it was discovered that the Ministry of Defence purchased illegal Brazilian mahogany.

The development of the Britishtimber industry, using wood from British forests, has been a major industrial success story.

Britain uses a large amount of timber, paper, boards and other wood products each year, equivalent to about 50 million cubic metres of timber; about 85% of this has to be imported, at a cost of about £8 billion.

Statistics on removals (harvesting) of roundwood (timber) from forests and woodlands in the UK, and deliveries of roundwood to sawmills and other primary wood processing industries.

Sustainable trade facilitation must be driven by national stakeholders, building to the largest possible extent on existing capacities and programmes of NGOs, private sector, Government and donors.

DFID (Department for International Development) is a British government department responsible for the formulation of policies and implementation of bilateral and multilateral programmes in poverty alleviation.

Its mission is to stimulate trade and investment in biological resources to further sustainable development in line with the three objectives of the CBD.

The ship is also known to be carrying timber supplied by a company that operates in Sumatra, buying timber in an area renowned for illegal logging which is threatening the survival of the island's tiger.

The UK TimberTrade Federation has admitted that not one of Indonesia's sawmills can provide sufficient evidence of legality or sustainability for the British market, and three of the main high street builders merchants, including Jewson and Travis Perkins, have stopped buying Indonesian plywood because of concerns about illegal trade.

Greenpeace is calling on the British and other EU governments to introduce legislation to make it a crime to import and market illegally logged timber and wood products.

Independent reports and studies by the UK TimberTrade Federation, PNG's Ombudsman Commission, the PNG Department of Labour and numerous non-government organisations have raised serious questions about the legality and sustainability of large-scale logging in PNG.

PNG should also put a ban on new logging permits and the renewal or extension of permits until the appropriate mechanisms, legislation, institutions and enforcement capacity are established to properly oversee a sustainable timber industry.

As a timber importer, Australia can ban the import of illegal timber and wood products, introduce a robust definition of legality and phase in internationally recognised third-party certification for all imports in the next two years.

The trade in woolens which had grown up amongst the Irish Protestants was likewise crushed by an enactment of 1699 which prohibited shipments, from Ireland, to any country whatsoever.

Britishtimbertrade with North America was a flourishing business.

In the early 19th Century the vast majority of emigrants to British North America landed at Quebec and then went 180 miles further up the St. Lawrence river to Montreal with the hopes of eventually crossing over into the United States.

Governments are deprived of royalties and timber producers in countries such as Australia are forced to compete with cheap illegal imports.

Consumer demand means an increasing number of countries import only timber that can be verified as legally and responsibly logged.

The BritishTimberTrade Federation has warned its members not to purchase timber originating from PNG and Solomon Islands because “our own investigations found that little evidence can be obtained to give even a minimum guarantee of legality.

Native old-growth forests around the world are under attack from multinational timber corporations.

Over 80% of the softwood cut in Canada is exported to the United States, a process that has been made easier by the elimination of trade barriers under NAFTA.

Unless the global society addresses the negative impacts of increased globalization we will continue to see increased logging of the world's native forests and more of the world's timber supply controlled by a few multinational timber corporations that have the resources and the power to move from continent to continent.